A fantasy adventure in ancient Greece

The Chosen Prince occurs in a Greek world imbued with the mysticism of the goddess Athene. Zeus has rent the Kingdom of Acroferra into two warring factions doomed to fight until the time is right for Athene to send a champion to undo Zeus’ punishment. Prince Alexos is her chosen one, and his upbringing is harsh, but his love for his little brother glows brightly.

The bedtime struggle is real

Stuffed pink rabbit in hand, Bear is completely and utterly ready for bed. But his coffee-fueled neighbor, Duck, is ready to play. He rings the doorbells, climbs a ladder to Bear’s window, even breaks out the emergency key—all the while ignoring Bear’s increasingly grumpy, terse protestations. Will Duck get his way, or will Bear lose his temper?

Dad's incredible journey

It was just a quick trip down to the shop on the corner, to buy some milk for cereal. And tea. Definitely tea. Nothing out of the ordinary would happen on a trip like that, especially with two children waiting at home to eat their cereal, and their mom gone to a conference. In Fortunately, The Milk, by Newbery Award-winning author Neil Gaiman, the father thinks it should only take a few minutes...

A most peculiar zoo

Imagine having the coolest pets in town. The absolute coolest pets. Then imagine not being able to tell anyone about them. This is what Zoe Kahn has to go through every day. In The Menagerie, the first book in a new series by sisters Tui and Kari Sutherland, Zoe and her family are the latest in a centuries-old line who secretly protect a collection of mythical creatures—dragons, kelpies,...

The 'Shopping Mall Gorilla' gets his own story

In Katherine Applegate’s The One and Only Ivan, the story is told by Ivan, a silverback gorilla who is the main attraction at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall. Ivan doesn’t miss the jungle much, not since Mack gave him a TV and showed him how to create art inside his “habitat.” Ivan also has lots of friends—Stella, the elephant who lives next to him; Bob, the stray dog who...

A terrible curse becomes a great power

Juliette has not seen, spoken to or touched another human being for 264 days. Locked away in an asylum as punishment for an accidental crime, her solitude is interrupted when she is assigned a cellmate. The fact that the cellmate is a boy both frightens and excites her. She is as frightened for him as for herself, because her powers, the same powers that caused her to commit the accidental...

Adventures with a friendly ghost

Liesl & Po begins very darkly. Liesl’s attic room is a “uniform gray darkness,” much like the world outside her window. In this bleak environment, she meets Po, a smudge of a ghost, three nights after her father dies. Po lives on the Other Side, a shadowy dimension of wild uncertainty.The likable characters in this story all have some sadness and loss in their lives, while...

Pigs-gone-wild birthday rumpus

In the world of children’s literature, Maurice Sendak, the beloved creator of Where the Wild Things Are, is a giant, and fans have been waiting 30 years for him to both write and illustrate another book. The wait is finally over with Bumble-Ardy, a riotous birthday tale that began as a character Sendak first developed in 1971 for an animated short on “Sesame Street.” Over the...

The truth comes out

Fans of the resilient and spirited young heroine in Katherine Hannigan’s 2004 debut Ida B will welcome the equally irrepressible and unforgettable Delaware “Delly” Pattison in Hannigan’s new novel, True (. . . sort of). With a tremendous sense of adventure and a fiery temper to boot, the fifth grader is tired of getting in trouble and not knowing why. She’s given...

An awesomely stinky story

What parent hasn’t had a child beg for a pet, with heartfelt promises to feed it, walk it and even clean up after it? In Paul Schmid’s A Pet for Petunia, his first solo venture as author and illustrator, one spunky little girl pleads and pleads (“Pleeeease?”) for her own pet. But not for a cat, a dog, a hamster, a rabbit or even a goldfish. Petunia wants a skunk!Set...